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Terrabod wrote:

Of course some non-human animals share traits with humans, like the ability to walk on two legs or to communicate verbally, but this doesn't mean we should attribute human motivation, characteristics or behaviour to those animals in a way that we don't for animals that do not walk on two legs or do not communicate verbally. My point was that if a non-human animal doesn't look or behave in a way that's familiar (human-like) to us then we value their suffering less by default regardless of the factors you mention.

We might be talking past each other, but I wouldn't attribute human motivations etc. to non-humans either. I'd simply posit that recognizing that non-humans can have their own motivations and cognitions does not mean we are "anthropomorphizing" so much as we are simply recognizing animal behavior.

If that behavior includes the ability to hold preferences and suffer for their loss, then concluding that non-humans are due ethical consideration is not that great a leap.